After undergoing an extensive re-restoration to ensure accuracy after a stint as a vintage racer, 1970 Porsche 917K Chassis 917-024 is coming to Gooding and Company’s Pebble Beach auction with an estimate of $13 to $16 million. This car has multiple storylines that ensure its place in history, and thus it will rate among the most significant and certainly most alluring offered this coming August in Monterey.
Piloted by Brian Redman and Mike “The Bike” Hailwood, Chassis 917-024 served in the 1970 Le Mans Tests. Redman set the fastest times of the event, proving that the kurz (short-tail) 917K could claim outright victory at Le Mans. (If you ever have the chance at a vintage event or Porsche dinner to listen to Redman’s tales of the 917, do not miss it. Redman is a storyteller extraordinaire.)
Considering the 917’s importance to both Porsche and the mythology of sports car racing, 024’s early service is storyline enough. Its mettle was tested. The 917K gave Porsche its first outright Le Mans victories, in 1970 and ‘71, establishing Porsche as a top-flight competitor.
Following testing and development sessions at Le Mans, Nürburgring and Ehra Lessien, 917-024 was sold to Porsche factory driver Jo Siffert, who subsequently leased the car to Steve McQueen’s Solar Productions for use in the 1971 film “Le Mans.” Thus, a second storyline, at least as important as the first, especially considering the burgeoning fascination with Steve McQueen, and the cultural import of the film “Le Mans.” According to extensive research by 917 historian and author, the late Walter Näher, 917-024 was utilized as a camera car, and appeared throughout the film.
Following its Hollywood stint, 917-024 remained in Siffert’s private collection until his passing. Chassis 024 led Siffert’s funeral procession, indicative of the 917’s importance in his life, before being sold to a private collector in Paris in the mid 1970s.
Chassis 917-024 spent a quarter century hidden, out of public view, before re-emerging in 2001 from a warehouse outside Paris, one of the greatest “barn finds” ever. Covered in dust and still wearing its Gulf livery, 024 was remarkably untouched after more than two decades in hiding. Even the original space-saver spare, Firestone fuel cell, and Firestone Super Sports GP tires remained in place, as well as a handwritten tag hanging from the key with instructions to run lean given the Le Mans set up, believed to be notated by Porsche driver Herbert Linge. At the time, it was touted as the most original 917 in existence.
The car has recently benefited from an exceptional “re-restoration” led by specialist Graber Sportgarage in Switzerland, completed in 2017. This effort was necessary because the owner had prepared the car to serve on-track, and that included setting aside the original frame for safe-keeping and replacing it with one far more robust, in the interest of driver safety. Yet another storyline in the history of a car that will define upper limits of the ongoing Porsche collector car boom.
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